The Attack on Home Births and Midwives Is Gearing Up: Study claiming triple death rate in home births belies its own data.

A recent medical journal study claims that, while women do better when they deliver babies at home, mortality in newborns is three times greater. However, the conclusion completely misrepresents the data. The study actually found that the infant death rate for home births was the same when a qualified midwife was present.

All those news media reports that parrot the authors’ stated conclusions are wrong. The conclusions drawn by the authors did not reflect the data they obtained. It’s a common technique when the results are other than those desired. They simply claim that the study showed something different than it actually did.

There has been a concerted attack on home births and midwives over the last few years. The goal of this particular piece of pseudoscience gives the gloss of legitimacy to modern medicine’s desire to medicalize yet another aspect of life. The reason, of course, is to force people to accept their treatments, pay for them—and eliminate all competition. Midwives, of course, are competition, as are homeopaths, chiropractors, herbalists, and even medical doctors who dare to practice outside the mainstream’s officially sanctioned drugs and invasive procedures.

The Study

The study, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, is a meta-analysis. The authors claim to have done a systematic review of “all” American and western European publications that documented outcomes for births and their locations.

False Conclusion

The claimed results don’t add up. The study states, “Less medical intervention during planned home birth is associated with a tripling of the neonatal mortality rate.” Yet, they documented higher birth weight and fewer preterm births, which are well known to be associated with better infant health. Such a discrepancy requires noting, yet the authors moved right along, as if nothing were wrong.

The study concluded that three times as many babies born at home die, compared with hospital-born children. While that’s technically true, it isn’t the most salient part of the study, and it’s used to imply that all home births are dangerous. However, the study clearly documented that the mortality rate of home births was the same as for hospital births when only those that were attended by qualified midwives were considered.

Link to Other Fraudulent Studies

The lead investigator, Joseph R. Wax, MD, is with the Maine Medical Center, a division ofTufts University School of Medicine. That’s the same medical center that somehow missed the fact that Scott Reuben, MD, faked 12 years of research in Celebrex and Vioxx—in spite of annual reviews. Tufts is looking more and more like a center for pseudo-research that supports the prevailing views and desires of Big Pharma and modern medicine, no matter how much harm it might do.

Undisclosed Source of Funding

Funding for the study was not disclosed. That should have raised the eyebrows of anyone reporting on the study. Worse, though, is the fact that a major journal published it without that information.

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